Lifebuoy

Lifebuoy has evolved into a €1 billion brand and the world’s number one selling germ protection soap, sold in over 50 countries. Our mission is to make a difference by creating quality, affordable products and promoting healthy hygiene habits. Since 2010, our hand hygiene initiatives and campaigns have reached over 1 billion people on the importance of handwashing to prevent illness.

Since the launch of Lifebuoy in 1894, our iconic red soap bar and its distinctive scent has been synonymous with cleanliness. Today, the brand is so much more – with its superior technology and new innovations brought to life across its many soap variants and specially designed hand and body washes, Lifebuoy is ensuring daily hygiene for the entire family.

Text on the left of the image says: “The ABCs of education haven’t changed in over a hundred years. Maybe, now is the time.” On the right are two children’s wooden alphabet blocks – one shows the letter ‘H’, the other shows hands and a bar of soap.

UNICEF’s early childhood development research highlights the link between early learning and language skills in establishing patterns and long-lasting memory. The H for Handwashing campaign leverages this insight to engrain handwashing in children as one of the first lessons they learn. The aim is to make handwashing a common habit which is not only learned at an early age, but also lasts a lifetime.

In 2020, Lifebuoy launched its award-winning campaign, H for Handwashing, which has reached over 12 million people. It aimed to fundamentally change the world’s handwashing habits and accelerate an increase in handwashing behaviour for children. The campaign transforms the letter ‘H’ in the alphabet to not only stand for Hat, Horse, or Hippo, but also Handwashing. By working with governments across Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, and South Africa, we ensured that they took ownership and made hand hygiene an integral part of the school curriculum.

In the campaign’s third year, over 100,000 young changemakers were appointed as H for Handwashing Chief Education Officers (CEOs) to harness the power of peer-to-peer learning. In 2023, we leveraged the power of play and reimagined the most popular and loved board games to develop and embed their understanding of crucial handwashing occasions. This led to positive behaviour change, with over 25% of children demonstrating improved awareness of correct handwashing steps.

Watch the ‘H for Handwashing’ campaign

A still image from the ‘Gift of the Ganga’ metaverse game illustrating a river with buildings on each side.

At Lifebuoy, we believe that a healthier planet means healthier people, and when the planet suffers, people suffer too. We know that plastic pollution breeds illness-causing germs and that’s why we launched Lifebuoy’s first award-winning planet-positive campaign to play a role in reducing the burden of plastic waste.

Despite being the source of life for over 500 million people, the Ganga, India’s largest river, remains one of the most polluted in the world, posing a significant threat to human health and the environment. To combat this plastic and hygiene issue, Lifebuoy kicked off the largest virtual hygiene drive in the metaverse – Gift of the Ganga. Gamers were invited to fish out plastic pollution from the river recreated in the metaverse – in exchange, Lifebuoy aimed to clear an equivalent amount, or more, from the actual river.

The initiative reached over 40 million people with world-renowned gaming influencers believing in the cause. The campaign won many awards across various platforms, including Effies, Spikes and Abby’s. On the ground, Lifebuoy is transforming the 27,000 kg of plastic collected from the Ganga into 500 handwashing stations. These pedal-operated, water- and heat-resistant handwashing stations will be set up in more than 250 schools, reaching over 200,000 children – encouraging them to handwash with soap at school and stay protected from illness.

Watch Gift of the Ganga

1 billionpeople reached through hand hygiene initiatives

A row of four ‘kebabs’ threaded with different coloured pieces of soap – one each of red, yellow, green and white. The text above the image states: “The world’s first handwashing kebabs”.

In 2022, during Ramadan, Lifebuoy launched the Handwashing Kebabs campaign, encouraging people celebrating iftar in street food markets to wash their hands with soap. Following the pandemic, handwashing had taken a back seat, with the lack of handwashing stations at these venues adding to the problem.

To address this, Lifebuoy transformed soap bars of different colours into kebab-like sculptures, positioning them alongside real kebabs in the food markets. This activation was conducted in four major cities across India – Mumbai, Delhi, Lucknow, and Pune. The placement of these soap kebab skewers served as a powerful reminder for people to wash their hands before feasting. The idea brought the critical message of handwashing to over 1.5 million people during the month of Ramadan. These skewers were also included in food orders that were delivered to homes, dispatched by leading restaurants and food delivery apps.

Find out more about the Handwashing Kebabs campaign

A drink can is being held in the foreground with a sticker that says: “The Condensation Cleanser”. In the background, a variety of other drinks containers – plastic bottles, glass bottles, cans and reusable cups – all display the same sticker.

The Condensation Cleanser is the simple, low-cost, effective result of Lifebuoy’s ongoing mission to find new ways to promote clean hands for more people across the world. This initiative is a highly scalable innovation for handwashing as it offers a viable alternative for many who have no immediate access to soap and running water, in the form of a sticker placed on cold drinks. By hacking the subconscious act of wiping fingers with condensation, every conceivable cold drink can be turned into a new and innovative medium to wash hands.

In 2024, Lifebuoy wanted to remind people about the importance of hand hygiene post-pandemic, especially during mealtimes, and reaffirm its commitment to improving access to good hand hygiene in an innovative manner.

These stickers were infused with Lifebuoy’s patented anti-bacterial formulation and designed to be activated by condensation. Upon contact with condensation, the dry agent dissolves, instantly dispensing the cleanser which cleans hands without leaving any residue.

Both a reminder and solution for good hand hygiene, this simple 5cm x 3cm sticker turns everyday cold drinks into a legitimate means of handwashing in a key market like India, where poor hand hygiene and access to handwashing facilities remains a widespread problem.

Find out more about the Condensation Cleanser campaign

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